Sublime

on February 21, 1804, in the presence of Homfray, Crawshay, and a government engineer who had come to observe. Trevithick wrote to a friend the next day, “We carried ten tons of iron in five wagons, and seventy men riding on them the whole of the journey … The gentleman that bet 500 guineas against it rode the whole of the journey with us, and is

Much more important, his philosophy of railroading—with its emphasis on infrastructure and the primacy of freight—would live on, not only in these lines but in most others as well.

When Clark died after a short illness in the spring of 1873, his brokers liquidated his UP holdings, causing a sharp price drop. Gould’s broker snapped it up, and Gould unexpectedly found himself in a control position. It was only at that point, he said, that he learned that the road had serious problems, including $5 million in unsecured call debt

Stephens was the president of the railroad, which was a wholly American-owned stock company with its main office in the old Tontine Building on Wall Street. The capitalization was a million dollars.

The “Q” was truly one of America’s best and most-profitable roads. Well capitalized, well constructed, and well managed by two of the giant figures of American railroading, John Murray Forbes and Charles Perkins, along with their New England associates, it served a densely populated and fertile agrarian hinterland stretching across Illinois and

The charade was ended in 1892 by incorporating as a New Jersey holding company and replacing the trust certificates with Standard of New Jersey stock.

By 1883, Gould had become the dominant owner of, or controlling shareholder in, or chief executive of, literally dozens of railroads, some of them only for brief periods of time. The blur of activity sent shock waves of alarm through competitors even as it delighted stock traders, many of whom grew wealthy divining what Gould was up to and